“Tell your master,” she whispered, “that the last White Shadow is gone after today. But her successor will be kinder. And kinder things last longer than cruel ones.”

“Surrender the Princess,” the Praetor said. His voice was the sound of a landslide. “And I will let you walk away.”

“I’m not fighting for Ethyria,” she said. “I’m fighting for the little girl inside that room. The one who prays for a world where no one has to become what I became.”

Yukari-chan said nothing. She never did.